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Liverpool considers takeover move by Asian group

Liverpool FC is reportedly close to accepting a £450 million deal which will allow a West Asian, Dubai-based consortium to take control of the Premier League club. According to the Soccer Investor, while American billionaire George Gillett and property tycoon John Miskelly are also thought to be keen on a takeover, the Dubai International Capital group will be permitted to begin the due diligence process this week. The proposed deal will include £200 million to build a new 60,000-capacity stadium.

Although the due diligence process gives DIC exclusive rights to study the accounts of Liverpool in order to finalise a deal, it is unclear whether it would be a full-scale takeover by DIC, or whether they would take over from chairman David Moores as majority shareholders.

DIC is run by chief executive Sameer Al Ansari and owns the Madame Tussauds Group and the Travelodge hotel chain as well as one third of the London Eye. The company is an investment arm of Dubai Holding, which is owned by Dubai Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

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The successful conclusion to Malaysia's end of season FA Cup and Malaysia Cup suggested that the "good times" were back for the domestic competitions of this football-mad, South East Asian country. "The fantastic fan support for the semi-finals and finals was beyond expectations,” said Football Association of Malaysia deputy president, Tengku Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah, as quoted by Pritam Singh. "The atmosphere was electrifying. I have not seen such support for some years now. I am sure this is the beginning of better things to come,” he said.

Unfortunately, the party was to be quickly spoiled: five clubs – Selangor Public Bank, Selangor MK Land, Johor Linkedua, Ipoh City Hall and Selayang – announced their withdrawal from next season’s M-League kicking off in December. According to AFC Media, MK Land quit after their failure to gain promotion to the Super League in the last two years while Public Bank pulled out after being relegated from the Super League at t…

The Indonesian Football Association (PSSI) is tightening control over foreign players' agents. Its website has announced the purpose is "to increase foreign player's quality in Indonesia League competition, whether in Premier Division or First Division."

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The football soft power contrast between Qatar and Iceland speaks volumes. According to James M Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, a comparison of the strategies of both countries demonstrates that it takes more than money to leverage soccer to create political, geopolitical and economic opportunity.

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Football fans in China "are as keen as ever to watch Manchester United’s international stars play in their country", according to new research by Birkbeck, University of London, quoted by Sports Business. According to Dr Simon Chadwick of Birkbeck’s sport business research team, “the promise of seeing top stars in action remains the most important factor influencing Chinese fan’s support for United”.

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Almost 1,200 supporters were questioned before United’s game with Beijing erleir this year and the research also shows how seriously Chinese fans take these games. Many indicated they were at the game in anticipation of Beijing claiming a shock win. The study was undertaken by a team of Chinese researchers on behalf of Birkbeck, working in cooperation with the Chinese Football Association and the Beijing Hyundai Sup…

As China signs up some of the world’s leading football
players, Simon Chadwick explains how this incredibly ambitious
football strategy is sending shock waves around the world game:

EACH YEAR, EUROPEAN
football clubs are able to buy and sell players during two specific periods of
time, known as transfer windows. One of the windows is in summer; the other is
in winter and in Europe this year’s has just closed. Normally these windows are characterised
by the lavish, high-profile spending of football’s elite – the likes of Real
Madrid, Manchester United and Bayern Munich. Indeed, a
week ago the English Premier League was being heralded as
being the £1
billion player transfer market (the value of transactions that took
place during 2015). But in one astounding move, everything
that many people thought they knew about football and the transfer of its
players was turned on its head. Last Tuesday, Columbian
international Jackson
Martineztransferred
from Atletico Madrid of Spain to China's G…

India's regional All Manipur Football Association has decided to boycott the national Under-19 and Under-14 football tournaments organized by the All India Football Federation in protest against a referee's decision in the 60th Santosh Trophy Football Tournament in Cochi, Kerala.

The complaint was that the referee allowed Goa to restart the game even as most of the Manipur players were celebrating W Tomba`s "brilliant goal in the 88th minute, off a classy swerving free kick" and an equalizer was scored by Goa`s Climax Laurence "even before the applause for Tomba`s goal subsided or the TV cameras had time to shift focus to the centre circle".

Announcing the boycott decision to media AMFA president, A Santosh Kumar, said that immediately after the incident, the Manipur team manager lodged a complaint contending violation of Rule No 8 of the Laws of the Game, and Article No 15 of the Regulation of the Championship. However the organizing committee, the referee, …